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Deborah is a writer and champion of books. She is an independent reader/reviewer, uncompensated for major and minor publishers. With degrees in Fine Arts, ArtHistory/MuseumStudies and English Lit., her interests are eclectic, as are her reading preferences. Surrounding herself with books,artworks, assorted papergoods and a collection of pens, she reads constantly, writes reviews...writes and writes!View Full Profile

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

A wildly inventive new collection of stories by Joyce Carol Oates that charts
the surprising ways in which the world we think we know can unexpectedly reveal
its darker contours
The New York Times has hailed Joyce Carol Oates as "a dangerous
writer in the best sense of the word, one who takes risks almost obsessively
with energy and relish." Black Dahlia & White Rose, a collection of
eleven previously uncollected stories, showcases the keen rewards of Oates's
relentless brio and invention. In one beautifully honed story after another,
Oates explores the menace that lurks at the edges of and intrudes upon even the
seemingly safest of lives—and maps with rare emotional acuity the
transformational cost of such intrusions.
Unafraid to venture into no-man's-lands both real and surreal, Oates takes
readers deep into dangerous territory, from maximum-security prison—vividly
delineating the heartbreaking and unexpected atmosphere of such an
institution—to the inner landscapes of two beautiful and mysteriously doomed
young women in 1940s Los Angeles: Elizabeth Short, otherwise known as the Black
Dahlia, victim of a long-unsolved and particularly brutal murder, and her
roommate Norma Jeane Baker, soon to become Marilyn Monroe. Whether exploring the
psychological compulsion of the wife of a well-to-do businessman who is ravished
by, and elopes with, a lover who is not what he seems or the uneasily
duplicitous relationships between young women and their parents, Black
Dahlia & White Rose explores the compelling intertwining of dread and
desire, the psychic pull and trauma of domestic life, and resonates at every
turn with Oates's mordant humor and her trenchant observation.

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and the National Humanities Medal, our government's highest civilian honor for the arts. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers "We Were the Mulvaneys," "Blonde," which was nominated for the National Book Award, and The New York Times best seller "The Falls," which won the 2005 Prix Femina.

She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. In 2003 she received the Commonwealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature, and in 2006 she received the Chicago Tribune Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the 2010 recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award.

Joyce Carol Oates lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

* Side note: She is The Bookish Dame's favorite author.

A Video on how Ms Oates Develops Characters:

THE BOOKISH DAME'S REVIEW :

There is nothing to do but give abundant praise of anything Ms Oates considers sharing with us in writing. "Black Dahlia & White Rose" is no exception to her extraordinary gifts. This is a volume of her grotesque, in keeping with some of her horroresque stories that she occasionally likes to write. I'm a fan. I fall at her knees and read voraciously everything that comes from her mind and "pen."

This is a book of stories for those who enjoy the wit and twist of mind of Joyce Carol Oates.

I loved her black humor and her distorted report of mad-ness in these stories. They make you shiver at the perversion of some human-beings and the sadness and loneliness of others. There is a minute exploration of the minds of characters that references the darkest psyches of us all. She tends to cull out and undress the hidden in people.

One wonders where she draws all her information! These stories are consummate Oates, but they are new in that they explore contemporary issues and the modern mind-set.

I loved the collection, and I know fans of hers will, too. So will those who don't know her, yet. How I envy those who are just on the cusp of discovering her. This will be a great introduction to her macabre and grotesque set in the ordinary of every day happenings. You must get a copy this year!!